glabrous

English

WOTD – 21 December 2021

Etymology

Pietro Perugino’s painting Don Biagio Milanesi,^{[n 1]} from the predella of the Vallombrosa Altarpiece (1500), depicts the glabrous abbot of the Vallombrosa Abbey in Tuscany, Italy.

The undersides of the leaves of the European crab apple (Malus sylvestris) are glabrous.

From Latin glaber (“smooth; bald, hairless”) + English -ous (suffix forming adjectives, denoting possession or presence of a quality in any degree, commonly in abundance).^[1] Glaber is ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European *gʰleh₂dʰ- (“smooth; bright, shining”), possibly from *ǵʰelh₂- (“to shine”).

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɡleɪbɹəs/, /ˈɡlæ-/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
(General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɡleɪbɹəs/
Audio (General American): (file)
Rhymes: -eɪbɹəs
Hyphenation: glabr‧ous

Adjective

glabrous (comparative more glabrous, superlative most glabrous)

Bald, hairless; smooth.
Synonym: calvous

Antonyms: nonglabrous; see also Thesaurus:hirsute
- 1670, John Evelyn, “. Chapter IV. Of the Elm.”, in Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-trees and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesties Dominions. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Jo[hn] Martyn, and Ja[mes] Allestry, printers to the Royal Society, →OCLC, page 28:
  [T]he Vernacula or French Elm, whoſe leaves are thicker, and more florid, glabrous and ſmooth, delighting in the lower and moiſter grounds, where they will ſometimes riſe to above an hundred foot in height; […]
- 1834, Robert Wight, G[eorge] A[rnott] Walker-Arnott, “Order LVI.—Leguminosæ. Juss.”, in Prodromus Floræ Peninsulæ Indiæ Orientalis: Containing Abridged Descriptions of the Plants Found in the Peninsula of British India, Arranged According to the Natural System [Preliminary Publication of the Flora of the Peninsula of Oriential India], volume I, London: Parbury, Allen, & Co., →OCLC, paragraph 572, page 186:
  [Crotalaria obtecta] Stems tall, erect, branched: stipules not decurrent: leaves simple, usually glabrous on the upper side: […] legumes oblong, many-seeded, glabrous or softly pubescent.
- 1973, Patrick O’Brian, chapter 1, in HMS Surprise, London: HarperCollinsPublishers, published 2002, →ISBN, page 2:
  'I am bound by precedent,' said the First Lord, turning a vast glabrous expressionless face from Harte to Sir Joseph.
- 1974, Guy Davenport, Tatlin!: Six Stories, New York, N.Y.: Scribner, →ISBN, page 190:
  Adriaan rose, pulling out his limbering glabrous cock, his eyes happy.
- 1981, T[homas] Coraghessan Boyle, “Mo O Mo Inta Allo”, in Water Music (The Penguin Contemporary American Fiction Series), New York, N.Y., London: Penguin Books, published 1983, →ISBN, part 1 (The Niger), page 143:
  The glabrous old head cranks round on him, stiff and slow, until the clouded eyes draw level with his own.

Antonyms

hirsute

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

bald, hairless — see also bald,‎ hairless

Arabic: أَمْلَس (ʔamlas)
Aromanian: spãn
Bulgarian: гладък (bg) (gladǎk), неокосмен (neokosmen)
French: glabre (fr)
Greek:
Ancient: λεῖος (leîos)
Hungarian: borotvált (hu), csupasz (hu), szőrtelen (hu)
Italian: glabro (it) m
Latin: glaber
Ottoman Turkish: تویسز (tüysüz)
Romanian: glabru (ro), spân (ro)
Spanish: glabro (es), glabrescente

botany: smooth — see also smooth

French: glabre (fr)

Notes

^ From the collection of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.

References

^ “glabrous, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, June 2018; “glabrous, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.